I’m with Amelia. Don’t be misled by her statement that personal adornment should be of secondary importance – it in no way means that we shouldn’t strive to look and feel beautiful in what we choose to wear. But for me, at least, it’s time to be comfortable. No more synthetic fibres, constricting waistbands or [...]
Category Archive for 'culture'
Doctor Who meets Helena Bonham Carter.
Posted in culture, inspiration on Dec 30th, 2011
Somewhat unexpectedly, this was one of my Christmas presents this year. A box set of all eleven Doctor Who figures. They were held into their TARDIS-shaped box (it had doors! with velcro!) with forty-four little twisty ties, which gave me plenty of time to contemplate the little Doctors as I was wrestling them out of [...]
Wild Boy’s Ball
Posted in costume, culture, exhibitions, inspiration, museums on Oct 1st, 2011
So, at long last, here is the completed stripy/steampunk outfit! Paul and I went to the Wild Boy’s Ball at Kensington Palace, and had an absolutely magical evening. You can see all the photos that Paul took, over on Flickr. We started off by going inside the palace itself, which was actually quite different from [...]
Eternal Magpie on Tumblr
Posted in culture, inspiration, writing on May 14th, 2011
Over the past few months I’ve also been keeping a blog on Tumblr. I’m using it mostly as a way of collecting and sharing images that interest me, or that I’d like to keep hold of for future reference. (This screenshot is of the archive, where you can view lots of thumbnails at once.) I [...]
Natural History Museum
Posted in culture, exhibitions, inspiration, nature on Mar 21st, 2011
A couple of Saturdays ago we went to the Natural History Museum. We booked tickets for the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition (which was the reason we’d made the trip), and also booked ourselves onto a Spirit Collection Tour. There are a few things-in-jars on display in the new Darwin building, but the 30-minute [...]
Written c. 1998 by Joan Juliet Buck, the editor-in-chief of French Vogue from 1994-2001: Hair is time. Women with short hair always look as if they have somewhere else to go. Women with long hair tend to look as if they belong where they are, especially in California. Short hair takes a short time. Long hair [...]
Enchanted Palace
Posted in culture, exhibitions, inspiration on Oct 23rd, 2010
Yesterday I went to the Old Operating Theatre and Herb Garret, where I arrived just in time for a talk. I was glad of that, because the museum would have made a lot less sense without it. It’s mostly three hundred years of medical history (including bit of bodies in jars) without a great deal of [...]
Shaharazad
Posted in culture, exhibitions, inspiration, music on Sep 26th, 2010
This is a little picture of “Shaharazad”, a mechanical organ owned by Boz Oram. Today we went to Crofton Beam Engines with the Aldbrickham Clog & Step Dancers, to dance at their end of season gala. There were some vintage cars, a few different steam engines and this mechanical organ. (And the enormous beam engines, [...]
Joana Vasconcelos
Posted in crafty things, culture on Aug 2nd, 2010
While I was at the Haunch of Venison, I also saw an exhibition of work by Joana Vasconcelos. I particularly liked the large ceramic pieces that had been covered with crochet. There was a lovely contrast of texture between the matt cotton thread and the shiny glazes underneath. The animal heads, mounted on the walls like [...]
Polly Morgan
Posted in crafty things, culture, inspiration on Aug 1st, 2010
Photo © Polly Morgan The other day I went to see an exhibition of artwork by Polly Morgan at the Haunch of Venison. The exhibition is called “Psychopomps”, after the mythical creatures that conduct souls into the after-life. This piece is “Atrial Flutter”, and it’s a human ribcage and spine, suspended from balloons. Photo © Polly [...]